eNCA says it didn’t ‘set up’ Norma Gigaba

News channel eNCA denied the allegation that it could somehow have plotted the public woes of Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba and his wife Nomachule, known as “Norma”, this week.

Sunday paper City Press spoke to a close friend of Norma’s, who told the paper she was “convinced that the interview Norma gave to eNCA was a ‘set-up’ [on the part of the channel or Gigaba’s enemies] calculated to inflict ‘political damage’ on her husband”.

In the TV interview, Norma said Gigaba’s public cheating scandal had affected her family. She said she stood by her words that Buhle Mkhize – a New York-based stylist with whom Malusi admitted to having an affair in 2014 – was a “prostitute” who lured men on social media.

eNCA’s editor in chief, Anton Harber, said any foul play on the news channel’s part could not have been possible.

He was quoted as saying: “How was it a set-up? We invited her and she accepted … you cannot blame the questioner for the answers.”

A series of explosive tweets by Mkhize followed the airing of the interview last Sunday. She slammed Malusi and Norma, who put up a brave face this week.

They went for dinner in Cape Town after a gruelling parliamentary session Malusi had during the day. Accompanied by a friend, they appeared happy in a snap that was posted to Norma’s Instagram account.

The affair had become public after Mkhize wrote an open letter about it in 2015, giving her side of the story after being publicly attacked on Twitter by Norma.

Though she had been hurt by the affair, Norma said on eNCA that she had worried more about her parents.

“I was feeling so bad for my mother and his mother. When they were going to church, people were reading Drum magazine, they were reading papers, and now we have to explain.”

Norma, who has two sons with Gigaba, said she felt her husband’s affair was karma, as she was apparently his side chick when he was married to his first wife.

In response, Mkhize, who is now married, opened a Twitter account to respond to Norma’s interview. She said she was not going to sit by and watch Norma “lie” to the public. In fact, Mrs Gigaba should have refused to speak about the affair, as everyone had moved on from it.

“Could you have not declined answering that question @normzmngoma? I get interview requests on it all the time but I decline,” she wrote.

Tweeting the minister directly and using PowerPoint slide screenshots to convey more information than is usually the case in a tweet, the woman further warned Gigaba to keep his wife on a leash or she would reveal more details about their affair.

“Stop her from ever bringing this up again or they’ll hear about December 18, you know me and documenting, I don’t slip @mgigaba.

“Let’s not forget the private jet Joburg to Durban @mgigaba. Shocker !!!. You’ve never met the Guptas angithi?”

Mkhize said Norma should have just kept quiet and lived her life quietly, but now secrets that had long been kept would come out, she threatened.

WATCH: Norma Gigaba speaks on cheating scandal that threatened her marriage

Gigaba’s ex-nyatsi Buhle Mkhize hits back at Norma, calls him a ‘very black frog’